Readings During Passover & Unleavened Bread

[alon]

There are and Haftarah readings during the days of Passover & Unleavened Bread:

First Day- (April 11, 2017)
First Day   Exodus 12:21-51 

First Day Haftarah  Joshua 5:2-6:1, 6:27 


Second Day   Leviticus 22:26-23:44

Second Day Haftarah  II Kings 23:1-9, 21-25 


The Song of Songs- Rabbinic Judaism also reads from the Song of Songs on Shabbat during the week of Passover. My synagogue does not do this; and I am not sure what the parent synagogue of the form's halacha is here. The Rabbinical reasoning for reading this is it is a love song between HaShem and man; and it is a song of Spring. You may read it or not, possibly on days 3 & 4 as there are other readings for Shabbat.


Shabbat  (April 15, 2017)  Exodus 33:12-34:26 

Shabbat Haftarah  Ezekiel 37:1-14

 
The Seventh Day  (April 17, 2017)  Exodus 13:17-15:26 

Seventh Day Haftarah  Second Samuel 22

The Eighth Day  (April 18, 2017) Deuteronomy 15:19-16:17 

Eight Day Haftarah  Isaiah 10:32-12:6 


Web sites such as Chabad may give a lengthier list of readings if you desire to do them.

The first and seventh days of Unleaven Bread are like sabbaths, except that cooking meals is allowed. No other regular work should be done if it can be helped. 

In Hebrew the seventh and eighth days are called Shvii shel Pesach (Seventh of Passover) and Acharon shel Pesach (Last of Passover), respectively. The eighth day is only done in the diaspora, not in Israel. The seventh day is a commanded convocation. If you have a seder or other instruction you may recite holiday prayers.


There are other practices done in Rabbinical Judaism which you may or may not do, depending on your halacha. 

One custom is to stay awake all night before the seventh day, studying and thanking G‑d for the miracle He did at this time. Those with a voice can sing.

Our matzah should not come in contact with moisture and be left in that state, as some leftover flour might become leavened. On the eighth day however, this restriction is relaxed, and matzah can be mixed with water and/or other liquids to make matzah balls, matzah brei and other foods.

Yizkor. During morning services on the eighth day, Yizkor (memorial prayers) are recited for departed relatives.

The Baal Shem Tov said that on the last day of Passover, the rays of the messianic redemption are already shining bright. He instituted a special meal to be eaten during the waning hours of the day.

Rabbi Shalom Dov Ber of Lubavitch added four cups of wine to the last meal meal, just as we did in the seder of our Pesach meal. I wouldn't do this on the eighth day because it mixes the wine, representing the sacrificial blood of Yeshua with leaven.

In Israel there is no eighth day, so those last two are done on the seventh day, which would make the four cups technically ok. However I am still not sure I'm comfortable repeating the four cups here as they were given for Pesach. However there is prededent as they show up in other places, such as the meal where the kethuba was finalized (1-3) and the final (4th) cup drank only by the bride and groom at the wedding.


Dan C

[alon]

Haggadah

Pesach this year is upon us. Wed the 8th is the preparation day, until sundown when Pesach begins. Most hold their seder just after the candles are lit marking the start of 15 Nissan at sundown.

Passover Seder סֵדֶר: “order, arrangement”; a ritual feast marking the beginning of Pesach/Passover, done as a community or by several generations of a family,

Haggadah הַגָּדָה: "telling"; text that sets forth the order of the Passover Seder. Sephardi Jews also apply the term Haggadah to the service itself.
Reading the Haggadah is a fulfillment of the mitzvah to "tell your son" of the Jewish liberation from slavery in Mitzrayim as described in Torah:

Exodus 13:8 (ESV) You shall tell your son on that day, ‘It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’

We should all try to keep this as much as possible, especially in this time of trial. Our liberation from this virus will be no less a miracle than that of the Hebrews from Mitzrayim. 

If you do not yet have a haggadah, you can get a free download at :

shop.elshaddaiministries.us/Passover_c35.htm

I also recommend his Feasts of the Lord CD set. I have an older copy, and he did a good job on it. I believe his newer copy still has the blood moons stuff on them. This brings up a caveat: he is Hebrew Roots, so use a lot of discernment with all his stuff. But it is more than reasonably priced, and he used to ship very quickly. I haven’t ordered from him in a while. But all my past experiences ordering from him were good. At this late date I’d recommend going there and shopping.

Not to cast aspersions, but be safe. Disinfect anything you get in the mail. Wear gloves if possible, wash hands regardless.

Your Pesach seder may not be perfect this year. It may lack elements, and will almost certainly lack in family and congregational participation. But I think back (for me) one generation, when the Jews of Europe held their haggadot with only what they had. Whether in hiding or in the Nazi concentration camps, they kept PesachI I can only imagine HaShem looking down on their efforts, what He must have felt for His people. 

So do whatever you can, but do something! If in a divided home and any type seder is not possible, then mark the day as a Shabbat and read your haggdah. And look to Adonai for deliverance!

Chag Pesach Sameach!

Dan C



PS: I’ll try and write something from each days readings through Pesach/Unleavened Bread this year.

[alon]

This evening at sundown is the start of our Passover/Unleavened bread. For many in this time we are experiencing restrictions on travel and gathering together. There is a sense of isolation from loved ones particularly. For others who are from mixed homes, this sense of isolation on feast days is not so new. For all of us, we will just do the best we can. But whatever you do, I encourage all of us to mark this day as special, studying of the Exodus story as though we were there. Make it personal. nd may the Lord make His face to shine on us all as believers making the most of His commanded days. Give us all hope for the future.

In that regard, I'd like to share something sent to me by the Israel Bible Center, a Messianic school geared mostly toward Christians:

“Hope” in Hebrew Thought

By Dr. Nicholas J. Schaser

English speakers often use the word “hope” to express speculative desires: “I hope that I get the job,” or “I hope we win this game.” In these contexts, we invoke “hope” as we close our eyes, cross our fingers, and wait for the best possible conclusion to an unsure situation, but this is not what the Bible means when it speaks of hope. In Hebrew, “hope” (תקוה/מקוה) is associated with God, so that the term expresses confidence, not in a future outcome, but in a present divine strength.

According to the Psalms, hope is decisive because it comes from God: “Only for God does my life [wait] silently, for from him comes my hope (תקותי; tiqvati). He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken” (Ps 62:5-6). The psalmist is already certain of his deliverance since God is the one in whom he puts his “hope.”

The Hebrew word for “hope” is the same as the word for a “pooling” or “gathering together” of waters (מקוה; miqveh). The Bible uses mikveh when God gathers together the waters at creation: “God called the dry ground ‘Land,’ and the gathering (מקוה; miqveh) of waters (מים; mayim) he called ‘Seas’” (Gen 1:10). Jeremiah connects this gathering of waters with his hope in God: “Lord, the hope (מקוה; miqveh) of Israel, all who forsake you shall be put to shame… for they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters (מים; mayim)” (Jer 17:13). The hope that Jeremiah has in God recalls God’s strength as the Creator: just as surely as God gathered the waters in the past, Jeremiah describes God as his present hope and living water. In biblical parlance, “hope” is not an abstract wish, but rather a complete assurance in God’s strength to sustain all things.

Our trust in Elohim is based in Hope, a surety based on God’s prior performance.

[alon]

Name of Par’shah- Pesach, Day 1

D’rash: We should all be reading the Magid, the story of the first Pesach tonight.

Numbers 28:16-17 (ESV) “On the fourteenth day of the first month is the Lord's Passover, and on the fifteenth day of this month is a feast. Seven days shall unleavened bread be eaten.

Always scripture speaks of the Pesach, or Passover separate from the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This causes much confusion with new converts. Some will recall when I first came here it caused me a lot of confusion, and I had been doing Hebrew Roots a while before I came over to Messianic Judaism.

So why is Pesach distinct from Unleavened Bread? And when should we eat the Seder meal?

The second is easy, as always the lamb is killed “between the twilights”:

Exodus 12:6 (ESV) and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight [Hebrew between the two evenings]

So the lamb was sacrificed on the 14th between the two evenings. Not at twiligt as most English translations say.

Exodus 12:8 (ESV) They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it.

“That night” can only refer to the 15th, as the biblical day begins at twilight.

So the Pesach Seder is done on the evening which starts the 15th of Nissan as the feast of unleavened bread begins. This is in line with the command:

Exodus 34:25a (ESV) “You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened.”

But why from the beginning and throughout scripture is the Pesach of the 14th held distinct from the Feast of Unleavened Bread?

Because that was the day the Lamb of God would be slain, sacrificing Himself for our sins. It would be inconceivable that this day, the lynchpin of all human history should not be marked separately. That is why the prophetic reference to the Lord’s Passover on the 14th, and the day the sacrifice was eaten is on the 15th when unleavened Bread starts.

Today we typically say Pesach starts on the 15th and goes to either the 21st (7 day celebration, and a holy convocation) or the 22nd (8 days celebrated by many in the diaspora). Pesach and Unleavened Bread sort of get crammed together. But as Messianics I think we should refer to it as the Bible does. The 14th, still the preparation day as this was the day our Moshiach dies and His body prepared for burial. But this is the Pesach, 14 Nissan. The week starting on 15 Nissan is the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And the Seder should be held on 15 Nissan just after twilight, just after the candles are lit.

I want to acknowledge a poster on facebook for asking about this and causing me to look more deeply into it.

Dan C

[alon]

Name of Par'shah: Pesach, Day 2


My wife and I were talking about the Seder, and according to her to most Jews today it is just a time to get together with family and eat. That’s what it was for her mostly growing up in a Jewish community of survivors of the Shoa! Her dad and uncle got out of Germany about two steps ahead of the Brown Shirts. I was using terms like the telling of the Maggid, and she had never heard the term. Of course she’d heard the story of the Exodus read, but didn’t know what it was called. I was stunned!

In our Pesach Haggadah, we have the story of four sons: One wise (Deu 6:20-23), one wicked (Ex 12:26-27), one simple (Ex 13:14), and one who does not know how to ask a question (Ex 13:8).

What does the wise son say? "What are the testimonials, statutes and laws Hashem our G-d commanded you?" You should tell him about the laws of Pesach, that one may eat no dessert after eating the Pesach offering.

What does the wicked son say? "What does this drudgery mean to you?" To you and not to him. Since he excludes himself from the community, he has denied a basic principle of Judaism. You should blunt his teeth by saying to him: "It is for the sake of this that Hashem did for me when I left Egypt. For me and not for him. If he was there he would not have been redeemed.”

What does the simple son say? "What's this?" You should say to him "With a strong hand HaShem took me out of Egypt, from the house of servitude.”

And the one who does not know how to ask, you start for him, as the Torah says: "And you should tell your son on that day, saying 'It is for the sake of this that Hashem did for me when I left Egypt.'"

Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, taught that today there is a fifth son, one who is not even present, completely unaware of his heritage.

There are contemporary equivalents to these four sons:

The first, Avram, immigrated to America to escape persecution. Having nothing when he arrived, he flourished in a land that afforded him opportunity. This man remained observant.

The second is his son, Shimshon. He is comfortable with Jewish traditions, but does not believe them sacred. His values are more materialistic, and he is a successful businessman. He works on Saturdays rather than keeping Shabbat. He does keep the feasts, mostly because they are fun times for family to get together and eat.

His son Dovid doesn’t really feel any cultural connection to Judaism. He’s attended some functions at relatives homes, but mostly sees no value in them. He feels they should just get together, eat and visit.

The next generation is represented by Joshua. He goes by Josh. Josh knows he is Jewish, but has little idea what that means. Josh “married out” to a Gentile woman.

And finally his son Eric. He knows his father is from Eastern European Jews, and his mother is English and Belgian, mostly. But like most Americans, he is not that interested in his ancestry. He’s more concerned with his regional heritage in the US.

This reminded me of an infamous scripture:

Romans 11:11 (ESV) So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather, through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous.

Strong’s G3863 παραζηλόω parazēlóō, par-ad-zay-lo'-o; from G3844 and G2206; to stimulate alongside, i.e. excite to rivalry:—provoke to emulation (jealousy).

Thayers παραζηλόω, παραζήλω; future παραζηλώσω; 1 aorist παρεζηλωσα; to provoke to ζῆλος (see παρά, IV. 3);
a. to provoke to jealousy or rivalry: τινα, Romans 11:11, 14 (1 Kings 14:22; Sir. 30:3); ἐπί τίνι (see ἐπί, B. 2 a. δ. at the end), Romans 10:19 (Deuteronomy 32:21).
b. to provoke to anger: 1 Corinthians 10:22 (on this see Prof. Hort in WH's Appendix, p. 167) (Psalm 36:1, 7f (Ps. 37:1,7f)).

This is a verse that Christians puzzle over, discuss ad infinitum, argue and are never satisfied about. And no wonder: what has Christianity got the Jews should want? They hate Jesus because they believe He persecuted them. And the corruption of scripture to change the meaning to whatever they want, the replacement theology in all its various forms, pagan forms of worship on pagan days; why would any of this cause the Jews to be jealous?

But consider what we as Meshiachim do. We dig out the truth. My wife (who converted to Christianity) gets angry with me whenever I try to discuss some of these deeper meanings in scripture. Outside Orthodox Judaism, which she considers a mishigas, most just don’t get that deep into scripture. Well, the Orthodox and intellectuals. The professors and doctors of Jewish theology can get quite deep into parsing out the smallest segment of a verse. But for most, I get the impression they take it for granted, just like the majority of Cristians filling church pews.

We also use a lot of Hebrew terminology, since it is more accurate and carries many connotations and allusions no translation can do justice to. Many Messianics speak Hebrew as well. And we keep Torah. Not like they keep Torah, but like it says in Torah, not Rabbinical Talmudic interpretations:

Matthew 11:30 (NASB) For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

So what if it is we, the Meshiachim who are to “provoke” the Jews? I mean, we definitely provoke them to anger. They consider Judaism to be their heritage, and theirs alone. Who are we to call ourselves Jews, joined to them and made heirs to the promises? Who are we to use these terms? But when we do know and use these terms, it does make them jealous. When we know scripture like they know scripture, they are jealous. The trick will be transitioning from jealousy going to anger to jealousy wanting what we have. And that brings us to the Brith Hadashah reading for today.

1 Corinthians 5:6-8 (ESV) Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?  Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.  Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Rav Shaul was addressing immorality in the Corinthian congregation. However this can also apply to our topic here. We should not be proud when approaching anyone about what we know. And certainly we should have no immoral practices.

Ephesians 2:11-13 (NASB) Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “Uncircumcision” by the so-called “Circumcision,” which is performed in the flesh by human hands— remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, [alienated] from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near [in] the blood of Christ.

We need to respectfully approach those Jews who will and study with them, earnestly seeking the truth. Yet always being mindful of our own beliefs. You should be well grounded in your own doctrines, lest you be convinced of theirs. Demonstrate our sincerity and our joy at discovering the most minute details.

Ed parker used to work on position of one element of a martial arts technique for hours. He’d adjust his structure one small element at a time and evaluate the overall effect on his structure. Even the movement of the eyes. I once did an experiment with several senior martial artists from different styles. I had them lay on their back, hold one arm straight up and make a fist. Then another would push the arm laterally in both directions while they resisted. First they did this looking straight ahead (at the ceiling). They could resist a lot of force this way. Then I had them look to the side moving just their eyes, and force was applied again. To a man the arm collapsed to the side with little force. Everything matters. And patterns in HaShem’s natural order tend to repeat. In scripture the terms matter. The smallest of actions of people in biblical stories matters. And everything Adonai says or does matters on so many levels.

Proverbs 25:2 (NASB) It is the glory of God to conceal a matter,
But the glory of kings is to search out a matter.

Note: this one was sort of off the cuff. Hope it wasn't too off the wall!

Dan C

[alon]

Name of Par'shah: Pesach, Day 3
  
Name of Par'shah: Pesach, Day 3

Exodus 34:10-28 (ESV) The Covenant Renewed
10 And he said, “Behold, I am making a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been created in all the earth or in any nation. And all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord, for it is an awesome thing that I will do with you.
11 “Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the
Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
1.) 12 Take care, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you go, lest it become a snare in your midst.
2.) 13 You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their Asherim 14 (for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), 15 lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they sleeper after their gods and sacrifice to their gods and you are invited, you eat of his sacrifice, 16 and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters sleeper after their gods and make your sons sleeper after their gods.
3.) 17 “You shall not make for yourself any gods of cast metal.
4.) 18 “You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month Abib, for in the month Abib you came out from Egypt.
5.) 19 All that open the womb are mine, all your male livestock, the firstborn of cow and sheep. 20 The firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem. And none shall appear before me empty-handed.
6.) 21 “Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest. In plowing time and in harvest you shall rest.
7.) 22 You shall observe the Feast of Weeks, the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the year's end.
8.) 23 Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel. 24 For I will cast out nations before you and enlarge your borders; no one shall covet your land, when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year.
9.) 25 “You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, or let the sacrifice of the Feast of the Passover remain until the morning.
10.) 26 The best of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.”
27 And the Lord said to Moses, “Write these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” 28 So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments [Ten Words].

Note: the numbering of the commandments, and therefore deciding what went with what is my own.

Our reading today once again looks at the “alternate” (I believe the primary, but I’m a definate minority) list of the Ten Commandments. For one thing, it is what Adonai Himself called “the Ten Words.” However, as I said many times, both lists are in Torah, so we are “primarily” responsible for everything said in both.

Notice this list is about our worship of HaShem, whereas the other list divides its attention between our relationship with HaShem and with our neighbors.

The Tenth Commandment here is: “10.) 26 The best of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.”

Many separate those two things, “best of the firstfruits” and do “not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.” However they are placed there together, like tat is how they belong. So I thought about it, and together just makes sense. If the subject here is how we are to worship HaShem (as this entire passage seems to be about), then this is saying that we bring our best to our Elohim, not the seconds, and not any kind of pagan practices.

I’ve done farm and ranch work most of my life. I can tell you that the first cutting is always the best. Take hay for instance; first cutting hay gets a premium price. It is richer in nutrients and just better hay. The first fruits of our produce is also the most desirable, because we’ve been without fresh produce for a time. But before we eat of His bounty, we are to bring the firstfruits into His storehouse.

It is the same with our tithes today. We should be giving tithes based on our gross revenue before any other bills. This is an act of trust in many months, that He will provide. Now if you are so destitute that you know you’ll have trouble with the bare necessities, by all means feed and clothe your family instead of tithing. But give something.

But what about that kid? Don’t boil it in its mothers milk? That refers to a pagan practice of taking a just born kid and boiling it in the mothers milk in front of her. It was a particularly cruel worship practice of some of the pagans in the regions surrounding Israel. It rather harkens to the sin of passing ones own child through the fire to Molech.

This to me has nothing to do with not eating a cheeseburger. It means the same as giving of our firstfruits. Our worship practices should reflect our best, not some pagan ritual that is abhorrent to the Almighty. Remember Nadav and Abihu:

Leviticus 10:1-3 (ESV) Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized [strange] fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them.  And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.  Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord has said: ‘Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.’” And Aaron held his peace.

It’s possible that the fire they offered was from a pagan practice of keeping a fire going (an eternal flame) to offer incense to the gods. We aren’t really told. But whatever they did, it was not what God had commanded them. ANY worship practice that is not what HaShem commanded is pagan! And they of course paid the ultimate price.

That, looking at this contextually I believe is what the proscription of not boiling a kid in its mothers milk is saying, “Do not mix pagan worship practices which I abhor with worship of Me! I get your best, which is what I told you to do!”

Now are there similar practices in paganism and in ancient Judaism as commanded by HaShem? Yes, there are. And pagans delight in pointing those out to us. However they fail to realize that many of those practices would have been known to Noach as proper worship of his Elohim. So as man strayed and formed their own religions, they copied much of what they had learned at the feet of their many times great grandfather Noach; just as he had learned it from his many times great grandfather Adam who had walked and talked with the Lord.

Ha’satan always copies HaShem; HaShem never copies ha’satan. Ha’satan does however come up with some particularly cruel variations, like boiling the kid. That is a pitiless counterfeit, a brutal imitation of sacrifices made to HaShem. The seemingly harmless burning of incense on a fire used as well to worship the vile demons who also expect the practice of cruelty, to animals and ultimately human sacrifice, defiles not just our worship, but the sanctuary where that worship occurs. It allows the enemy a place in our camp.

Dan C

[alon]

Parashah: Pesach, Day 4

D’rash: I was going to do a rewrite based on this, but decided I couldn’t do it justice. So having permission to reprint if I give them credit (which I am always happy to do), this is by Dr Nicholas J Schasser of the Israel Bible Institute. Enjoy:


What’s So Wonderful About the Woman at Bethany?

All the Gospels narrate the story about a woman who anoints Jesus (Matt 26:6-13; Mk 14:3-9; Lk 7:36-50; Jn 12:1-8)—an event that Matthew, Mark, and John locate in the town of Bethany. According to the first two Gospels, the woman prompts Jesus to declare, “Amen, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her” (Matt 26:13; Mk 14:9). Why does the Messiah laud this woman’s deed so highly? What’s so wonderful about the woman at Bethany? The answer lies the way that her action anticipates Jesus’ self-sacrifice and points to the good news of God’s love.

According to Matthew and Mark, as Jesus ate a meal, “a woman came with an alabaster jar of ointment… and broke the jar and poured it over his head” (Matt 26:7; cf. Mk 14:3). Though the disciples scold the woman for wasting perfume that could have been sold for the sake of the poor, Jesus responds, “Why do you trouble her? She has done a good work for me…. She has anointed my body (σῶμά μου; somá mou) beforehand for burial” (Mk 14:6, 8; cf. Matt 26:10, 12). Jesus’ interpretation of the woman’s good deed foreshadows his words at the Last Supper: “Take, eat; this is my body (σῶμά μου; somá mou)” (Mk 14:22; cf. Matt 26:26). Thus, the woman at Bethany anticipates the sacrificial quality of Jesus’ body and plays a preparatory role prior to his atoning death.

In John, the woman—whom the Fourth Gospel identifies as Mary, the sister of Lazarus (cf. Jn 11:2; 12:3)—anoints Jesus’ feet, rather than his head. Mary “took a litra of expensive ointment… and anointed Jesus’ feet (πόδας; pódas) and wiped (ἐκμάσσω; ekmásso) his feet with her hair” (12:3).

Mary’s action at Bethany anticipates Jesus’ foot-washing a chapter later. Yeshua “poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet (πόδας; pódas) and to wipe [them] (ἐκμάσσω; ekmásso) with the towel that was wrapped around him” (13:5). Jesus’ willingness to wash his disciples’ feet reflects his self-sacrificial love for them, and tells them, “Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (13:34). This same love appears in the most famous verse of the New Testament: “For God so loved the world that he gave his unique Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (Jn 3:16). In John, the woman at Bethany provides Jesus with the template for washing his disciples’ feet and expressing his self-sacrificial love before his journey to the cross. 

The woman at Bethany presages Jesus’ ultimate gift of forgiveness through sacrifice. It is for this reason that Jesus says “what she has done will also be told in memory (εἰς μνημόσυνον; eis mnemósunon) of her” (Matt 26:13; Mk 14:9). Likewise, Jesus tells his disciples to partake of the Last Supper “in remembrance (εἰς… ἀνάμνησιν; eis anámnesin) of me” (Lk 22:19; cf. 1 Cor 11:24-25).

Just as Jesus’ followers remember his death through the partaking of bread and wine, the Gospels say that the woman at Bethany will be remembered because she pointed to the importance of that very death. Yet, today, there is no memorial meal or holiday in memory of the woman at Bethany. This Passover/Holy Week, we might choose to affirm Jesus’ wonder at this woman by celebrating an evening in her honor!

[alon]

Name of Par’shah- Pesach, Day 5

D’rash:

Numbers 28:16-25 (ESV) “On the fourteenth day of the first month is the Lord's Passover, and on the fifteenth day of this month is a feast. Seven days shall unleavened bread be eaten. On the first day there shall be a holy convocation. You shall not do any ordinary work, but offer a food offering, a burnt offering to the Lord: two bulls from the herd, one ram, and seven male lambs a year old; see that they are without blemish; also their grain offering of fine flour mixed with oil; three tenths of an ephah shall you offer for a bull, and two tenths for a ram; a tenth shall you offer for each of the seven lambs; also one male goat for a sin offering, to make atonement for you. You shall offer these besides the burnt offering of the morning, which is for a regular burnt offering. In the same way you shall offer daily, for seven days, the food of a food offering, with a pleasing aroma to the Lord. It shall be offered besides the regular burnt offering and its drink offering. And on the seventh day you shall have a holy convocation. You shall not do any ordinary work.

If the Temple still stood, we’d be obligated to offer sacrifices to HaShem. This obviously cannot happen now. However we still can, and I would suggest should practice tzedakah, charitable giving as a means of fulfilling this commandment.

Technically the term tzedakah means “righteous living.” And there is nothing more righteous than helping others. If you have a synagogue where you attend, I would suggest giving through them. If not, I’d suggest trying to give through some venue which is trying to get the Word out. One that helps the poor while spreading the Good News would be a great place to give. Or if you know family or friends who are struggling during this time they maybe should be the priority. Whatever or whoever you give to, give as to Adonai. Baruch HaSHem.

[alon]

Name of Par’shah- Pesach, Day 6

D’rash:

Exodus 23:20-21;33:15-17 (ESV) “Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him. …  And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?” And the Lord said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.”

Moses just argued with YHVH-Shammah God Who is Available When Needed (Eze 48:35), refusing the offer of an angel who would basically clear a path in and overwhelm ha’eretz (the land) for the Hebrews. The catch was this angel would destroy them if they were disobedient. HaShem relented, almost certainly saving the people from destruction.

Numbers 9:7-11 (ESV) And those men said to him, “We are unclean through touching a dead body. Why are we kept from bringing the Lord's offering at its appointed time among the people of Israel?”  And Moses said to them, “Wait, that I may hear what the Lord will command concerning you.” The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, If any one of you or of your descendants is unclean through touching a dead body, or is on a long journey, he shall still keep the Passover to the Lord. In the second month on the fourteenth day at twilight they shall keep it. They shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

Again, the people ask about not being allowed to partake in Pesach through no fault of their own, a thing which would still cause them to be cut off. HaShem relented, and they were allowed to have a delayed seder. This would be an important precedent later when the Maccabees wanted to have a delayed Sukkot. This of course became the holiday (holy day) of Chanukah, a time the Lord quite possibly blessed by His Ruach miraculously impregnating a young Jewish girl a few short centuries later.

Exodus 14:2-4 (ESV) “Tell the people of Israel to turn back and encamp in front of Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, in front of Baal-zephon; you shall encamp facing it, by the sea.  For Pharaoh will say of the people of Israel, ‘They are wandering in the land; the wilderness has shut them in.’  And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will pursue them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.” And they did so.

Returning to our Exodus story:

Did you get that? YHVH-Tsevaoth, the Lord of Hosts (1 Sam 1:3), their Great General just told them to encamp with their backs to the sea, then told them he was going to make Pharoah angry and send the Egyptian army after them! And they did it. Then later:

Exodus 14:22 (ESV) And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.

They all had to step out in faith, with a wall of water on their left and right, and walk through to the other side. This was a very real, very pertinent and to the point picture of tevilah (baptism). Those waters represented a mikvah, where we would ritually immerse ourselves trusting Elohe Yeshuathi, the God of My Salvation (Ps 18:46) to fulfill the ritual and make us clean before Himself. They trusted He would finally deal with the bondage of their time in Mytzrayim, Egypt, biblically representative of sin itself. And much later:

John 1:29b (ESV) “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

There is a common theme to all this. Our Elohim wants us to interact with Him. We are to walk with Him, not three paces behind. Not follow in blind obedience. Moses, like so many others argued with Ha’Elyon, The Most High (Deu 32:8). Remember Avraham, who stood and bargained with El Channun, a Gracious God (Jonah 4:2) like a fishmonger about the destruction of Sodom (Gen 18:16-33)? How many gods of the ancient world would allow its subjects to challenge them like Moshe and Avraham? How many today even, in a time when we have every kind of god man’s imagination can construe?

Remember the daughters of Zelophehad? Like the men who wanted to observe Pesach in Numbers 9, these women brought a claim to Moshe, who went to Manah Chelek, The Portion Of My Inheritance (Ps 16:5), who told them those women were right. They were to be given an inheritance from among their brothers (Num 27:1-11). Their Shofet, their Judge (Ps 75:7) ruled they were right and amended His law concerning inheritance in the land.

We serve an Elohim whose halacha (our walk, the minutia of how we follow Torah) is not restricted to a body of legal rulings. Halacha, our walk with our Elohim is much more personal, much more engaged. Like the Hebrews with their backs to the sea, we must engage Him in trust. As we step into the waters of the mikvah we need to remember the trust of those Hebrews centuries before who left Mitzrayim and all they knew to follow their Elohim. They camped where they could not escape and awaited Pharaoh’s wrath. And while fearful, it is true, still they walked between the waters. And like the symbolism of tevilah (baptism) in the removal of sins, they watched as the very biblical symbol of sin was washed away, the army of Egypt destroyed.

Yet if we do not keep the story alive, who will remember? This is why we keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread each year; to remember as though we were there. We rid our homes of leaven and eat Matzah for a week to connect with them on some very tangible level.

Exodus 13:3-4 Then Moses said to the people, “Remember this day in which you came out from Egypt, out of the house of slavery, for by a strong hand the Lord brought you out from this place. No leavened bread shall be eaten.  Today, in the month of Abib, you are going out.

So we should ask ourselves, are we going out? Are we walking with the Children of Yisroel as they go to the other side? Or is this just another celebration; a reason to eat creative Matzah recipes? 
When you were baptized in the church (for many of us), was it just symbolic of being burried with the Christ and rising a new person? Or did you understand the very real symbolism of the removal of your sins by that same Christ? And now, if and when we are able to do tevilah, do you understand? Do you walk between the waters after encamping “in front of Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea?”



Dan C

[alon]

Name of Par’shah- Pesach Day 7

Revelation 15:3b-4 (ESV) 
“Great and amazing are your deeds,
    O Lord God the Almighty!
Just and true are your ways,
    O King of the nations!
Who will not fear, O Lord,
    and glorify your name?
For you alone are holy.
    All nations will come
    and worship you,
for your righteous acts have been revealed.”

Revelation ties all scripture back to the Exodus as here the saints sing the Song of Moshe. Revelation, where the world is judged, and Elohei Olam, Everlasting God (Is 40:28) brings the last back to the first, His Torah, by which He, our Shofet, Judge (Ps 75:7) will hold all men accountable.

Exodus 15:11-12 (ESV)
“Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods?
    Who is like you, majestic in holiness,
    awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?
You stretched out your right hand;
   the earth swallowed them.

Who is like El-Shaddai, Almighty God/Might of the Powerful Ones (Gen 17:1). We serve an awesome God.

Exodus 15:22-26 (ESV) Then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea, and they went into the wilderness of Shur. They went three days in the wilderness and found no water. When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter; therefore it was named Marah. And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” And he cried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a log, and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet.
There the Lord made for them a statute and a rule, and there he tested them, saying, “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, your healer- YHVH-Rapha, God Who Heals.”

He is also El Shadai, God the Provider (Gen 28:3). It can mean either, based entirely on context.

Numbers 28:25 (ESV) And on the seventh day you shall have a holy convocation. You shall not do any ordinary work.

Why? What is wrong with working? Well, nothing as far as working goes. But on any Shabbat, whether the weekly one or one of the moedim, we do not work because all our creative efforts should look towards YHVH Hose’enu, God Our Creator (Ps 95:6). We look to what He has done, not what we can do. And this is important.

Faith- condensed from a short darash by Dr Yeshua Gruber of the Israel Bible Center

“אמונה emunah, usually translated “faith” actually means “steadfast, reliable, trustworthy, dependable.” And faith isn’t that bad a translation, it just isn’t the best, and it rarely gives the connotations important to understanding ant particular scripture. Take:”

Habakkuk 2:4 “The righteous shall live by his faith.”

“So, if we believe in God, maybe even trust Him, we’re saved. Right? But the Hebrew means something very different: “The person of justice lives in steadfast reliability.” inner conviction and suppressing doubts about unprovable beliefs!”

אמונה ʼĕmûwnâh, em-oo-naw'; or (shortened) אֱמֻנָה ʼĕmunâh; feminine of H529; literally firmness; figuratively security; morally fidelity:—faith(-ful, -ly, -ness, (man)), set office, stability, steady, truly, truth, verily.

“Faith is not intended to be a feeling. It is an action verb. Hebrew emunah and the related verbal forms imply living in a particular manner, rather than just feeling or thinking something.”

“Habakkuk 2:4 is a description of the lifestyle that characterizes a person who genuinely lives in accordance with “justice” (I would argue that this word is a closer equivalent than “righteousness,” which can sound a bit vague and religiousy). The verse itself contrasts this steadfast consistency in the way of justice — which can be a hard road — with the person who is “heedless” or “reckless” or perhaps “puffed up” (with pride). Hebrews 10 also offers a contrast when quoting the statement, distinguishing those who persevere faithfully in the way of justice from feckless or unreliable people who “draw back” instead of persevering. So in my view it’s not just a question of substituting one word or another — which we could do forever, always trying to find a better approximation of the original! Rather, I think we should dig a little deeper to try to understand the whole sense of what is being communicated.”

So faith is not just blind trust. It can be said that faith is based on past performance. If we are faithful, we live like it. Anyone can say it, but true faith can be observed. Corrie ten Boom had faith. Avraham had faith. Adam had a lapse in faith, and Yeshua, the second Adam shouwed us what faith really looks like. But what about Atik Yomin, the Ancient of Days (Dan 7:9)? Does He show אמונה emunah? And if we do not see this faithfulness, how can we truly trust Him?

This is why on every Sabbat we think of Him, what He has done. What He did in those wonderful Bible stories. And what has He done for us? For some, they can point to big things miraculously done on their behalf. But for most it is a lot of little things. But for all there is something we can place our finger on and say “The Most High God [El Elyon]: (Heb 7:1) did this for me.”

So we know who it is we serve (2 Tim 1:12), and what He can and has done. It is based on His steadfast past performance. We focus on these things each Shabbat lest we forget, and we then have our own crises of faith.

Dan C

Note: tomorrow is the 8th day, which I observe as a fence. However it is only by tradition (not by commandment) that we keep this at all. And this year we are looking for commandments applicable to us today. So I will not be doing a darash tomorrow. I hope your Feast of Unleavened Bread has been a good one despite the restrictions this year. It's been interesting doing these darashot for the moed, but now we'll get back to the regular weekly darashot. Hopefully everyone is counting the Omer to our next moed, Shavuoth.